Fatal Pictures: Worm (2010) + Familiar (2012) + Heir (2015) [eng]
I will introduce my new category Shorties with an short film trilogy by Fatal Pictures. A canadian film production company consisting of writer/director Richard Powell and producer Zach Green. At this point I want to thank Zach Green for the opportunity to see these movies.
If you have any chance I recommend watching all three short films at once. They’re 21, 24 and 14 minutes long, so it won’t take much of your time. The movies are not linked to each other by content but by topics and style. Furthermore Robert Nolan is playing the lead role in all of them. Although he’s playing not the same character, they are similar in their nature.
You see I am trying not to spoil anything. The lesser you know the better. Nevertheless I have to describe to movies to pitch them to you because you don’t want to miss them.
Worm
All parts of the trilogy combine drama and horror. Worm focuses more than the other ones on Drama. We take a look inside the head of Geoffrey Dodd and experience one day from his point of view.
During the whole movie we are confronted by a voice over. Normally I am quickly irritated by these but in this case it is a coherent stylistic device in order to dive in the world of Geoffrey Dodd. Moreover this method allows unveiling the gap between Dodd’s middle-class outer self and his inner abysm.
A very interesting piece although it’s kind of unsatisfying because I want more of it. Happy me – there is more.
Familiar
The second Part of the trilogy continues where the first part ended. Even though not in terms of the content. This time we are following Robert Nolan as John Dodd.
Again we are confronted with the same voice over technique and taking a glimpse behind the bare appearance. The monster behind the middle-class facade is going to become visible. As Worm was limited to the world of Dodd, Familiar takes us a step further. We get the chance to bond with other characters as well what strengthens the emotional engagement with the movie.
In general Familiar is much more intense than Worm partly due to the striking cinematography by Michael Jari Davidson. In addition the horror elements are much more present. The psychological horror combined with body horror à la Cronenberg (Canadian Power!) is on point. I really loved that.
I also really like the sound design, which was already quite good in Worm. It’s very subtle what I appreciate.
I won’t tell you anything about the story that would spoil the fun but I can say it will change the way you’ll see Worm.
Heir
The conclusion of the trilogy continues the process. We have the monster behind the mask, it’s getting more intense and the horror elements increase.
The story is about child abuse and deals with the topic of victimization. Once again Robert Nolan does an astounding job playing alongside the great Bill Oberst Jr.
The photography is great and I really enjoyed the whole scruffy atmosphere.
Yet in the end there are too much goofy elements which reminded me of 50s creature features. I can understand the intention to lighten up this dark and gruesome topic but to me it seemed kind of incongruous. It wouldn’t really fit and unfortunately damaged the whole picture for me a lot.
There would be so much more to say about this trilogy because there is so much to discover. Richard Powell has done a really good job and I would recommend watching this to everyone. I really looking forward to the first feature-length film of Fatal Pictures.